My Time to Waste

Or something like that.

Obama reminds me of Clinton.  I remember thinking that Clinton would be a liberal Reagan in that he, too, could be a “great communicator.”  I thought that because he seemed to communicate with the public so well as a candidate.  But once he was in office, he stopped.  And the Republicans controlled the message.   Soon Clinton was declaring the era of big government over.

Obama seemed to be able to communicate as a candidate and seems to not be able to do so as a President.  The Republicans control the message and Obama is trying hard to sound more centric in the State of the Union address.

It is interesting that when polled about specific elements that make up (one of?) the health care reform bill, the majority of Americans are in favor of almost all of them.   http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/upload/8042-T.pdf

In other words, if people understood what was in the legislation, there would be a lot more support.

I found the poll from a link on Jonathan Chait’s blog at The New Republic.

If only Obama could communicate.

There is a very old Peanuts strip that I am reminded of lately.  In the strip, Lucy is walking with Linus and explaining to him the origin of telephone poles.  She says something along the lines of “The telephone pole is actually a tree specially developed by the phone company to grow without branches.”

Charlie Brown over hears this lecture, drops his head against one of the phone poles and says “I can’t stand it.”

President Obama plans to deliver an address to the nation’s school children that “will challenge students to work hard, set educational goals, and take responsibility for their learning.”

Conservatives are up in arms that the President wants to indoctrinate the nation’s school children with his “socialist agenda.”

So working hard, setting educational goals, and taking responsibility now constitutes a socialist agenda?

I can’t stand it.

I don’t blame Obama for what he said.  For a very long time, to be black in America was to be a target for law enforcement (and I’m sure it still is occasionally at least).

But it is also true that for a very long time in America (and, I suspect, anywhere on the planet earth), even a white person can get him or her self arrested for doing nothing more than arguing with a police officer.

Obama admitted he did not have the facts and still offered up an opinion which was based on the past history between police and African-Americans.   Obama spoke stupidly.

Josh Marshall at TPM Media has an excellent post up about the position a police officer is in every time he or she responds to a call.  I recommend it.

As, I hope, most Americans are, I am concerned about the federal debt. Already high at the end of the Bush years, the federal deficit is now even higher, and the forecast for future years is even worse.

Clearly this is unsustainable.

I voted for Obama and I support his agenda. But at some point the deficit/debt must be addressed. I believe Obama to be an intelligent man and an astute politician. He surely understands the potential problems of continuing to pile up debt. I have to believe that he has a plan.

And the plan is this.* Effectively dealing with the federal deficit will not be politically popular. Programs will have to be cut and taxes raised. It will take a lot of Obama’s political capital to do this. So much so, that it would be difficult for him to get his other agenda items through after dealing with the deficit.

Of course, getting his other agenda items through might not leave him with enough capital to deal with the deficit. So what to do? By leaving the deficit for later, it continues to grow to obscene amounts. A year (or two?) from now, congress will have no choice but to get serious about the deficit. Democrats will have to accept some program cuts and Republicans will have to accept some taxes. They will be pushing each other aside to cut and raise more than the other.

A guy can dream, right?

*No, I have no inside info. This is completely speculative on my part.